Yes Steam is a defacto monopoly. But not through the actions of Valve but through the actions of it competitors.
Being honest with you. I didn't read past this. Because it's so obvious you're a young G*mer who has only lived in a Steam world.
Steam paid for exclusivity with publishers. Getting them to not only pull games from other online stores (because there were a number of stores back in the day before Steam killed them).
But also to change their physical copies to use Steam as DRM.
consumer rights are in the focus
Ok so I skimmed the rest of the comments and had to laugh here. The EU literally had to come out and tell Valve to stop being anti-consumerist cunts. And even now they're only doing the bare minimum. Jesus Christ you must still be in school.
Cave Story was the year before, Dwarf Fortress was a year out, and Doom was Doom.
Self publishing was a big thing, shareware and early online distribution. Even bigger than it is now. (Because there's not a monopoly sucking in all the eyes(which includes you it seems as you can't even imagine a non-Steam world (probably because you're a young lad trying to act old)))
valve does not enforce a monopoly, its just the competition shoots themselves in the foot all the time
Since you're clearly too young. I'll give you a history lesson.
Twenty years ago. Valve started paying publishers to change their physical games to use Steam. The Disc (because games came on discs back then) were useless without the Steam code.
They also paid for exclusivity. As there were quite a few digital distribution platforms at the time. IGN even had one.
It is ok for Gabe to be billionaire and profit off predatory gambling practices on children and micro transactions and selling broken games and selling unfinished games and repeatedly trying to monopolise the pc hardware industry and being anti consumer and taking 30% of all game sales
Because he monopolised the PC marketplace so I no longer have to leave the house to buy anime porn games.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-restricts-14-day-eu-refund-law/1100-6425990/
The reason you can get refunds. Is because Steam did this shit for years, until the EU told them to wise up.
So fuck off with your revisionist "Steam is consumer friendly" bullshit.